Dead Malls of Canada

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Not disagreeing - but school isn't really that expensive in Canada, even today.

Comparing myself (millenial) with my parents (early gen x), I'm a a lot wealthier than they were at my age. Me and my fiancée are on relatively similar career paths to them too.

Yes there are obvious differences due to different eras, but I truly believe millenials are wealthier than any other generation.

Credit is easy to get, but people have more money too. A lot more. Most millenials I know take regular vacations, save appropriately, and live a pretty average life. Without going into debt. The kind of stuff they buy and the lifestyle they lead is a lot wealthier than the one that boomers led at that age.

I'm curious about how children factor into apparent wealth. My parents had kids younger than the current generation. So, they appeared worse off than I am at their age, but that's not a fair comparison as they were raising 3 kids at the time.

Children can alter the wealth balance quite dramatically.

[MolsonExport]

NWT represent! Includes video, article, and photos.
The rise and fall of a small-town mall

An oral history of how Yellowknife’s urban shopping centre went from a shopper's paradise to a cockroach-infested retail wasteland


cbc

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

NWT represent! Includes video, article, and photos.
The rise and fall of a small-town mall

An oral history of how Yellowknife’s urban shopping centre went from a shopper's paradise to a cockroach-infested retail wasteland


cbc

Cockroaches can survive in t NWT? God help us all.

[MolsonExport]

the covid crisis is going to be the final nail in the coffins of many dying malls.

[Doady]

The #1 reason for the death of many malls is because of the death of the department store.

Department stores acted as the "anchor tenants" of malls, drawing visitors and generating foot traffic from department store to department store. Malls are designed so that the smaller stores lie on along this path. Without department stores, there is no foot traffic.

Now it is all power centres being built now. The smaller stores in power centre don't rely on foot traffic because everyone is expect to drive from store to store.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

the covid crisis is going to be the final nail in the coffins of many dying malls.

There will also likely be a number of stores not reopening in every mall once malls are allowed to open.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I really don't believe believe the bunk that baby boomers are wealthier than gen x and millenials. Well, they are wealthier, but they've are older too. I think that millenials and gen x are wealthier than they were at the same age.

What you believe and what statistics say are very different. Also, your personal situation may not reflect statistics.

US stats but I doubt it's much different in Canada:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/millenn...ir-age-had-21/

When Boomers were 30, they had 21% of the nation's wealth. Millennials are verging on 30 today and have just 3% of the nation's wealth. This is a huge part of what is driving various lifestyle choices and changes in consumption patterns.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

the covid crisis is going to be the final nail in the coffins of many dying malls.

Mostly a positive. For a lot of our cities malls represent a substantial land reserve that can be developed into housing and commercial space. We also have way too much retail space:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ies-worldwide/

There's just no reason we need 4x the retail space per capita as Europe. Even with drive throughs and big box stores, we should be closer to where Australia is.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

NWT represent! Includes video, article, and photos.
The rise and fall of a small-town mall

An oral history of how Yellowknife’s urban shopping centre went from a shopper's paradise to a cockroach-infested retail wasteland

That is a really fascinating article, thanks for sharing that. It does a nice job of describing the era of 'peak mall' during the 80s and early 90s.

It does seem likely that the covid situation is going to bring about a reckoning for malls that were just barely hanging on. But as Truenorth pointed out, they can easily reinvent themselves through redevelopment, as the land they're sitting on often has great value.

So the old school 70s mall bookended by Sears and Eatons may well be replaced by a few multi-unit residential buildings with a couple of standalone retail buildings on the site, or something along those lines.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Doady

The #1 reason for the death of many malls is because of the death of the department store.

Department stores acted as the "anchor tenants" of malls, drawing visitors and generating foot traffic from department store to department store. Malls are designed so that the smaller stores lie on along this path. Without department stores, there is no foot traffic.

Now it is all power centres being built now. The smaller stores in power centre don't rely on foot traffic because everyone is expect to drive from store to store.

Yes, this is true. Much harder to draw flies if you are anchored by a flea market (pardon the pun) on one end and some Goodlife fitness on the other.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Yes, this is true. Much harder to draw flies if you are anchored by a flea market (pardon the pun) on one end and some Goodlife fitness on the other.

Heh, I think maybe you guys will miss the flies and being flies. Or maybe Mississauga just didn't have enough standards or vision for de-malling. I dread the idea of the rest of Canada becoming like Mississauga. I hope the rest of Canada will do better. Malls weren't great, but power centres are so much worse in my experience.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Doady

Heh, I think maybe you guys will miss the flies and being flies. Or maybe Mississauga just didn't have enough standards or vision for de-malling. I dread the idea of the rest of Canada becoming like Mississauga. I hope the rest of Canada will do better. Malls weren't great, but power centres are so much worse in my experience.

Agreed! Power Centres are terrible, and I would take a mall any day over them. Empty/vacant power centres are a bigger blight on the landscape than empty malls. We have a couple of failed power centres here in London. They are among the most soul-sucking places on earth.

[ssiguy]

[QUOTE=Truenorth00;890935

When Boomers were 30, they had 21% of the nation's wealth. Millennials are verging on 30 today and have just 3% of the nation's wealth. This is a huge part of what is driving various lifestyle choices and changes in consumption patterns.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. Malls have never survived on necessities but rather on discretionary spending. This is why many malls collapse but the only stores that survive are the grocery and pharmacies.

Remember most of our malls were built in the 70s and the huge expansions happened in the 80s. They were surrounded by newly built and booming suburbs with homes with 5 or 6 people living in them and tons of kids with lots of discretionary spending.

Today those kids are gone and the remaining people are in their 60s & 70s who don't care about getting the latest gadgets or fashions. Added to this the fairly recent development of big-box stores that offer cheaper pricing due to far lower overhead and you have a recipe for disaster.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Doady

Heh, I think maybe you guys will miss the flies and being flies. Or maybe Mississauga just didn't have enough standards or vision for de-malling. I dread the idea of the rest of Canada becoming like Mississauga. I hope the rest of Canada will do better. Malls weren't great, but power centres are so much worse in my experience.

The power centres are going to get hit too. The malls are just getting hit earlier.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The power centres are going to get hit too. The malls are just getting hit earlier.

The malls were at least convenient and generally pleasant once you got inside. Power centres on the other hand are awful places to endure. From a place-making perspective you couldn't do much worse than the average big box strip. They flat out suck. Which from a business perspective discourages people from wandering around the same way they might at a mall... you pull up to the one store you want (since it's always by car), get your stuff, then leave as fast as you can.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by esquire

The malls were at least convenient and generally pleasant once you got inside. Power centres on the other hand are awful places to endure. From a place-making perspective you couldn't do much worse than the average big box strip. They flat out suck. Which from a business perspective discourages people from wandering around the same way they might at a mall... you pull up to the one store you want (since it's always by car), get your stuff, then leave as fast as you can.

At least malls had a chance to be a bit different in design and feel on the interior. All big box developments are exactly. the. same. and it's soul crushing.

[MolsonExport]

Paradise by the dashboard lights

dumbperipherals

Quite possibly, the most soul-sucking, banal places on earth.
Viewed from space, they look like skin cancer on the landscape.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The power centres are going to get hit too. The malls are just getting hit earlier.

Huh? Power centres are replacing malls. The construction of power centres is the reason malls are being demolished. Did you think malls were going to be replaced by apartment buildings or something?

Malls are like one whole, one community. The loss of even one store can have serious reprecussions for all. Power centres are more piecemeal, the stores don't rely on each other as much, so they are much less vulnerable to economic disruption like this lockdown.

The problem with power centres is from an urban design standpoint. The greater amount of parking space required because people park at every store they go to instead of at just one spot. This results in a much larger footprint, lower density, longer walking distances, and therefore lower walkability. Malls are often act as major transit hubs in the suburbs. Power centres not so much.

You celebrate the deaths of malls, but I think you will not celebrate for long. What will replace them will likely be even worse, much much worse. As I said, I hope newer power centres will be subject to higher design standards than I what I've seen so far, but maybe there is little that can be changed about them.

[Djeffery]

This whole thing in less than 2 months has switched probably more people into online shoppers than the last 10 years of Prime days has. I think some retailers who have embraced websites will be fine even if they close a bunch of stores, and many are probably happy to ditch high priced retail rent for cheap warehouses. Most of them ship from stores, but they don't need to keep doing it that way.

[stevanford1]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Agreed! Power Centres are terrible, and I would take a mall any day over them. Empty/vacant power centres are a bigger blight on the landscape than empty malls. We have a couple of failed power centres here in London. They are among the most soul-sucking places on earth.

The Power Centre imho, has been killed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Big Box Stores are dropping like flies, and mall stores are even worse off (see JC Penneys stock). What I want to know is what we’re going to do with these abandoned power centres and malls.